I mentioned once before that sometimes Tim gets paid in the form of stuffed animals, free admission to things, meals, etc.
Lately he's been getting a lot of T-shirts.
And the last job he did, he got paid cash plus 66 gallons of water.
That was a first.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Last words on my curriculum adventures...maybe
I know I keep talking about this, but it was a major major accomplishment. I realize almost nobody will really understand that because, really, who writes their own curriculum for their kids--ever? Nobody. My mom will probably understand and appreciate it all because she's an instructional designer--she's done this before for multiple companies. Mostly everyone else I talk to says, "Oh, I just buy my curriculum." Yeah--that's easier, for sure. But I had two problems with that--I can't afford a curriculum, and I found that most of them were not really academically challenging and interesting to my kids (because they don't make stuff on the 8th grade level with a 2nd grade sense of humor). I figured, given my rather unique children, I could do better than I could buy, and free.
(My basic philosophy, which I call "freeschooling" is that there is BETTER stuff online, for free, than you can get for any price through any traditional curriculum that you buy or that the schools provide--if you know where to find it. I've been "finding it" for Learning Lynx for over a year now, but this time I set out to organize what I found into cohesive, academically sound lessons for my own kids).
So here's what I did: I dug through the internet, searching for age- and intellect-appropriate lessons that were student-ready. There are thousands (and probably millions) of free lesson plans posted online, but I couldn't use those because the setup around here is that the kids turn on the computer and log in to school, and they each do a set amount of online lessons per day that have to be ready for them when they click the link. So no lesson plans, which I would have to prepare in advance and then sit down and formally teach and manage activities and stuff--I can't do that because I'm not organized enough and because I'm schooling FIVE kids each day in five different grades. It takes too much time. So the lessons have to be online links, student-ready, and only take a short amount of time to complete (2-3 minutes each for Nathanael, less than 20 minutes each--and preferably 5 minutes or less each--for the biggest kids because we still have to deal with the ADD issues) with tutoring and coaching from me, but nothing extensive or lengthy, but still be solidly educational and (here was the kicker) superior to what they would get on the same subject in a public school, most private schools, AND most homeschool curriculums that you might purchase. Oh, and they had to be free. 100% free and also accessible as individual links without logging in and using their system to access it (so, for example, SAS curriculum was off-limits because I couldn't share the link for that and have anyone on earth access it, and most of the sample lessons from Time4Learning were out because all the links take you to the same menu page, not the individual lessons; Head of the Class only was allowed because if you do log in, even as a guest, you can then access individual lessons from a regular browser window--you don't have to use their interface if you don't want to). Oh, and they had to be on the right academic level for my gifted kids, but also interesting to their social/emotional/ developmental stage.
So the rules were rather strict, and that sometimes made it hard to find materials. Sometimes, though, there were too many (like on electrical circuits, of all things!), and I was left sorting through them to pick the ones that were highest quality and most applicable to the child learning the lesson.
What I ended up with was 5 complete years of schooling. I gathered, collected, arranged, etc. 7861 individual, student-ready, free online lessons covering 8 subjects.
A summary:
Playschool (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_162hnz9c3fr)--geared toward my gifted 1-year-old, 800+ lessons on reading, music, spelling, art, math, science, social studies, and "fun" (a catchall category for miscellaneous stuff). Math covers shapes, numbers and counting, Reading covers the ABCs and nursery rhymes; writing consists of coloring pages; Spelling covers the ABCs and the letter-sound correlations as well as introduction to the concept of words; science consists of body parts, computer use, animals; Social studies covers family; music covers children's and primary songs; art covers drawing, colors, and shapes, and includes art instructional videos, "fun" covers opposites and more about animals. This is pretty heavy on the videos and light on the interactives because when I started it, my 1 year old didn't know how to use a computer mouse (he does now). It covers a lot of the same materials as the preschool lessons do.
Preschool (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_163cqgf5pdq)--geared toward my gifted 3-year-old, 900+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, and "fun". Math consists of numbers and counting, shapes, sorting, and other kindergarten math skills; reading covers ABCs, letter-sound correlation, sounding out words, nursery rhymes and folktales, Mercer Mayer stories, Maurice Sendak stories, and miscellaneous fun tales; Writing consists of learning to write the uppercase and lowercase letters; science consists of animals and nature; social studies covers family and a little bit the community; Music covers nursery rhymes and other traditional children's songs; and Art covers drawing, shapes, colors, and how-to art videos. Fun is, as above, a catchall category for more animals movies, etc. This is really really similar to the Kindergarten curricula I've found, so if your child is in K and not learning reading already, you'd want to use this first before you started the actual K curriculum I wrote.
Kindergarten (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_151f8h562g5)--geared toward my gifted 5-year-old, 1400+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, and "fun." Math consists of numbers and counting, odd and even, addition, subtraction, sorting, and a LOT of practice on math facts; Reading consists of learning to read using phonics, and literature lessons covering nursery rhymes, stories, and an extensive unit on Dr. Seuss stories; writing consists of learning to write letters and words, handwriting practice, playing make-believe games, and verbally telling stories; Spelling covers the phonics spelling lists from Spelling City; Science covers temperature, weather, animals, plants, bugs, cooking, materials science, machines, and building; Social Studies covers communities, jobs, places, and life necessities around the world (food, clothing, and houses); music covers the musical instruments and instrument families; art includes how-to art videos, art projects, and drawing lessons. "Fun lessons" cover more of the above and focus a lot on cooking lessons. This is really more akin to most of the first grade curricula I see around, so I'm sure it could easily be adapted to use in 1st or even 2nd grade, depending on the kid.
Second grade (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_155gqms2sd3)--geared toward my gifted 7-year-old who loves Biology, 2100+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, Spanish, and "Fun". Math consists mostly of addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts practice (because she's doing Saxon Math 54 for her "real" math lessons); Reading covers parody/fractured fairytales, Shel Silverstein, "The Wizard of Oz," "Alice in Wonderland," "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and a smattering of language things like homophones and similes; writing covers basic grammar and punctuation, cursive and print handwriting, and telling stories; Science consists of Biology; History covers how we learn about history, historical objects as evidence of the past, "history detectives," and family and personal history; music covers and introduction to the musical instruments, an introduction to reading music, and a basic introduction to musical concepts like pitch, timbre, tempo and also a few famous composers; and art covers the elements of art, how to look at art, and introduction to design, and lots of playing with art. "Fun" covers animals, mostly, to complement the biology lessons. Oh, and she's learning Spanish and doing 2nd Grade Spelling lists from Spelling City. Actually, this could be used by anyone 3rd-8th grade.
Fourth Grade (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_15752xgxhg9)--geared toward my gifted 9-year-old who loves history and all language arts, it includes 2400 lessons that cover the same subjects as second grade. Because we're using Saxon 54 as the primary math curriculum, the online stuff I collected is mostly facts practice (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division); Reading covers the history of the English language, word roots, "Stories from Shakespeare," "The Hobbit," "Around the World in 80 Days," and "A Christmas Carol"; Spelling covers word roots, spelling rules, 4th grade advances lists from Spelling City, and fun language things like puns, autoantonyms, palindromes, simile, metaphor, etc; Writing covers writing effective paragraphs, both print and cursive handwriting practice, various kinds of figurative language, an intro to editing, and an intro to descriptive writing; Science covers health and middle school level physical science (physics, mostly); History covers US history (extensively); music covers the elements of music, instruments, note-reading, etc; Art includes paper craft and origami, and brief intro to American Art, design, math in art, optical illusions, and MC Escher; "fun" covers introductions to MANY different sports. And he's learning Spanish. Actually, as written, this curriculum could be easily used by anyone 3rd-8th grade, depending on the kid.
It took me 6 weeks, and in the process I also finished big swaths of first grade (which might be almost completely done; I haven't looked back at it yet), 3rd grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, and 7th grade, and started on 8th grade in addition to what I completely finished for my kids.
It was tedious copying bazillions of links (okay, only 7861 links), and even more tedious formatting them into google docs to make them accessible to anyone on earth who wants to take advantage of all the work I just did and do some completely free homeschooling. But it was also fun, satisfying work. I feel like I managed to make something that is really sound educationally, really fun, and enjoyable for the kids. Nobody complains that they have to do school anymore--they all willingly sit down and do the lessons, which are challenging, fun, and interesting. And, unlike most free curricula out there, it covers a LOT of subjects thoroughly. I'm especially pleased with the language arts and humanities stuff--those have always been my specialty, and those are what I taught for 6 years before having children, and they came out really good. WAY better than most of the stuff out there. The social studies curricula are pretty nice, too. Science I'm feeling my way through. I love to read science, but I've never taught it, so it's getting edited as we go (since it turns out that even a gifted 7 year old needs a little background in order to really "get" things like organic chemistry. She didn't even know what an atom was!)
Still, I feel like I accomplished something MAJOR--like a Master's Thesis in Curriculum Design with an emphasis in Free Online Homeschooling. Only nobody will ever give me a degree for what I just did.
But they should.
Now on to the apples (we picked 5 boxes of apples off our tree out front, and there are at least 5 more boxes' worth out there that we can't reach because we have no ladder), the laundry (we've been given so many new clothes in the past month--dozens of boxes and bags from at least 4 different families) that EVERYTHING has to be sorted and put away, and the baby's room (which needs serious work before a baby can sleep in there!). Oh, and I have novel to finish and start querying to agents. Can't forget that.
(My basic philosophy, which I call "freeschooling" is that there is BETTER stuff online, for free, than you can get for any price through any traditional curriculum that you buy or that the schools provide--if you know where to find it. I've been "finding it" for Learning Lynx for over a year now, but this time I set out to organize what I found into cohesive, academically sound lessons for my own kids).
So here's what I did: I dug through the internet, searching for age- and intellect-appropriate lessons that were student-ready. There are thousands (and probably millions) of free lesson plans posted online, but I couldn't use those because the setup around here is that the kids turn on the computer and log in to school, and they each do a set amount of online lessons per day that have to be ready for them when they click the link. So no lesson plans, which I would have to prepare in advance and then sit down and formally teach and manage activities and stuff--I can't do that because I'm not organized enough and because I'm schooling FIVE kids each day in five different grades. It takes too much time. So the lessons have to be online links, student-ready, and only take a short amount of time to complete (2-3 minutes each for Nathanael, less than 20 minutes each--and preferably 5 minutes or less each--for the biggest kids because we still have to deal with the ADD issues) with tutoring and coaching from me, but nothing extensive or lengthy, but still be solidly educational and (here was the kicker) superior to what they would get on the same subject in a public school, most private schools, AND most homeschool curriculums that you might purchase. Oh, and they had to be free. 100% free and also accessible as individual links without logging in and using their system to access it (so, for example, SAS curriculum was off-limits because I couldn't share the link for that and have anyone on earth access it, and most of the sample lessons from Time4Learning were out because all the links take you to the same menu page, not the individual lessons; Head of the Class only was allowed because if you do log in, even as a guest, you can then access individual lessons from a regular browser window--you don't have to use their interface if you don't want to). Oh, and they had to be on the right academic level for my gifted kids, but also interesting to their social/emotional/ developmental stage.
So the rules were rather strict, and that sometimes made it hard to find materials. Sometimes, though, there were too many (like on electrical circuits, of all things!), and I was left sorting through them to pick the ones that were highest quality and most applicable to the child learning the lesson.
What I ended up with was 5 complete years of schooling. I gathered, collected, arranged, etc. 7861 individual, student-ready, free online lessons covering 8 subjects.
A summary:
Playschool (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_162hnz9c3fr)--geared toward my gifted 1-year-old, 800+ lessons on reading, music, spelling, art, math, science, social studies, and "fun" (a catchall category for miscellaneous stuff). Math covers shapes, numbers and counting, Reading covers the ABCs and nursery rhymes; writing consists of coloring pages; Spelling covers the ABCs and the letter-sound correlations as well as introduction to the concept of words; science consists of body parts, computer use, animals; Social studies covers family; music covers children's and primary songs; art covers drawing, colors, and shapes, and includes art instructional videos, "fun" covers opposites and more about animals. This is pretty heavy on the videos and light on the interactives because when I started it, my 1 year old didn't know how to use a computer mouse (he does now). It covers a lot of the same materials as the preschool lessons do.
Preschool (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_163cqgf5pdq)--geared toward my gifted 3-year-old, 900+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, and "fun". Math consists of numbers and counting, shapes, sorting, and other kindergarten math skills; reading covers ABCs, letter-sound correlation, sounding out words, nursery rhymes and folktales, Mercer Mayer stories, Maurice Sendak stories, and miscellaneous fun tales; Writing consists of learning to write the uppercase and lowercase letters; science consists of animals and nature; social studies covers family and a little bit the community; Music covers nursery rhymes and other traditional children's songs; and Art covers drawing, shapes, colors, and how-to art videos. Fun is, as above, a catchall category for more animals movies, etc. This is really really similar to the Kindergarten curricula I've found, so if your child is in K and not learning reading already, you'd want to use this first before you started the actual K curriculum I wrote.
Kindergarten (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_151f8h562g5)--geared toward my gifted 5-year-old, 1400+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, and "fun." Math consists of numbers and counting, odd and even, addition, subtraction, sorting, and a LOT of practice on math facts; Reading consists of learning to read using phonics, and literature lessons covering nursery rhymes, stories, and an extensive unit on Dr. Seuss stories; writing consists of learning to write letters and words, handwriting practice, playing make-believe games, and verbally telling stories; Spelling covers the phonics spelling lists from Spelling City; Science covers temperature, weather, animals, plants, bugs, cooking, materials science, machines, and building; Social Studies covers communities, jobs, places, and life necessities around the world (food, clothing, and houses); music covers the musical instruments and instrument families; art includes how-to art videos, art projects, and drawing lessons. "Fun lessons" cover more of the above and focus a lot on cooking lessons. This is really more akin to most of the first grade curricula I see around, so I'm sure it could easily be adapted to use in 1st or even 2nd grade, depending on the kid.
Second grade (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_155gqms2sd3)--geared toward my gifted 7-year-old who loves Biology, 2100+ lessons on reading, spelling, writing, math, art, science, social studies, Spanish, and "Fun". Math consists mostly of addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts practice (because she's doing Saxon Math 54 for her "real" math lessons); Reading covers parody/fractured fairytales, Shel Silverstein, "The Wizard of Oz," "Alice in Wonderland," "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and a smattering of language things like homophones and similes; writing covers basic grammar and punctuation, cursive and print handwriting, and telling stories; Science consists of Biology; History covers how we learn about history, historical objects as evidence of the past, "history detectives," and family and personal history; music covers and introduction to the musical instruments, an introduction to reading music, and a basic introduction to musical concepts like pitch, timbre, tempo and also a few famous composers; and art covers the elements of art, how to look at art, and introduction to design, and lots of playing with art. "Fun" covers animals, mostly, to complement the biology lessons. Oh, and she's learning Spanish and doing 2nd Grade Spelling lists from Spelling City. Actually, this could be used by anyone 3rd-8th grade.
Fourth Grade (https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_15752xgxhg9)--geared toward my gifted 9-year-old who loves history and all language arts, it includes 2400 lessons that cover the same subjects as second grade. Because we're using Saxon 54 as the primary math curriculum, the online stuff I collected is mostly facts practice (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division); Reading covers the history of the English language, word roots, "Stories from Shakespeare," "The Hobbit," "Around the World in 80 Days," and "A Christmas Carol"; Spelling covers word roots, spelling rules, 4th grade advances lists from Spelling City, and fun language things like puns, autoantonyms, palindromes, simile, metaphor, etc; Writing covers writing effective paragraphs, both print and cursive handwriting practice, various kinds of figurative language, an intro to editing, and an intro to descriptive writing; Science covers health and middle school level physical science (physics, mostly); History covers US history (extensively); music covers the elements of music, instruments, note-reading, etc; Art includes paper craft and origami, and brief intro to American Art, design, math in art, optical illusions, and MC Escher; "fun" covers introductions to MANY different sports. And he's learning Spanish. Actually, as written, this curriculum could be easily used by anyone 3rd-8th grade, depending on the kid.
It took me 6 weeks, and in the process I also finished big swaths of first grade (which might be almost completely done; I haven't looked back at it yet), 3rd grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, and 7th grade, and started on 8th grade in addition to what I completely finished for my kids.
It was tedious copying bazillions of links (okay, only 7861 links), and even more tedious formatting them into google docs to make them accessible to anyone on earth who wants to take advantage of all the work I just did and do some completely free homeschooling. But it was also fun, satisfying work. I feel like I managed to make something that is really sound educationally, really fun, and enjoyable for the kids. Nobody complains that they have to do school anymore--they all willingly sit down and do the lessons, which are challenging, fun, and interesting. And, unlike most free curricula out there, it covers a LOT of subjects thoroughly. I'm especially pleased with the language arts and humanities stuff--those have always been my specialty, and those are what I taught for 6 years before having children, and they came out really good. WAY better than most of the stuff out there. The social studies curricula are pretty nice, too. Science I'm feeling my way through. I love to read science, but I've never taught it, so it's getting edited as we go (since it turns out that even a gifted 7 year old needs a little background in order to really "get" things like organic chemistry. She didn't even know what an atom was!)
Still, I feel like I accomplished something MAJOR--like a Master's Thesis in Curriculum Design with an emphasis in Free Online Homeschooling. Only nobody will ever give me a degree for what I just did.
But they should.
Now on to the apples (we picked 5 boxes of apples off our tree out front, and there are at least 5 more boxes' worth out there that we can't reach because we have no ladder), the laundry (we've been given so many new clothes in the past month--dozens of boxes and bags from at least 4 different families) that EVERYTHING has to be sorted and put away, and the baby's room (which needs serious work before a baby can sleep in there!). Oh, and I have novel to finish and start querying to agents. Can't forget that.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Writing Curricula
So I created 5 complete full-year, 7-8 subject curricula this year. It took a lot of work and I'm very tired of copying and pasting links.
I realized, as I finished the last one, that I am still very much a middle school teacher. Both the 2nd grade and the 4th grade curricula, save for the spelling lists, are 100% usable as written for junior high. I guess I can't escape what I am! I wrote a 7th and an 8th. Again.
Next year, I have to do 1, 3, and 5th grades. The three years after that I only have to write one new one each year, and then I'll have a complete set of pre-k through 8th grade freeschooling curricula.
Hooray!
I realized, as I finished the last one, that I am still very much a middle school teacher. Both the 2nd grade and the 4th grade curricula, save for the spelling lists, are 100% usable as written for junior high. I guess I can't escape what I am! I wrote a 7th and an 8th. Again.
Next year, I have to do 1, 3, and 5th grades. The three years after that I only have to write one new one each year, and then I'll have a complete set of pre-k through 8th grade freeschooling curricula.
Hooray!
Nathanael and Benji and talking.
Yesterday a friend commented on how verbal Nathanael is for his age. I hadn't thought about it (all my kids are verbal). But I looked around and she's right--most under-2s don't speak full sentences or say that many different words. Or practice their pronunciation deliberately until it's just right.
We got home and Nathanael climbed up on a chair and woke the computer from its sleep and said, "I want to watch Thomas." Then he turned on Hulu. All by himself. Unfortunately, Hulu doesn't work very smoothly on the 10-year-old iMacs, so I came over and turned on Starfall.com for him (his favorite site). He said, "I want the ABCs song." So I loaded that and sat down in my rocking chair and started working on stuff.
He looked at it for a minute and then said, "I don't want the ABCs song."
Without hesitating, I glanced over and said, "Then don't watch it. Turn it off and choose something else. Click the X to go back or click the sparkles to play the song."
He said, "Okay," thought for a minute, watched the song and then went back to the main menu and chose a different activity, telling me what letter he had chosen before he clicked on it. All of that all by himself.
Only then did I glance back over and realize I had just told my less-than-2-year-old to use the internet with out help--and he did it! I guess he's verbally talented in both expressing himself AND in understanding.
This week, I also read a snippet from "What to expect from the Toddler Years." It explained clearly and unequivocally that ALL children learn language at different paces, but going through the exact same steps in the exact same order. And they listed the order, which I don't remember all of but that emphasized that kids learn words first and then sentences.
And it finally dawned on me why Benji had so much trouble learning to talk. He didn't learn words first. He learned sentences first. And it's taken him a couple of years to learn words to plug into the sentences he's been speaking since he was 7 months old. (His first English utterance was the complete sentence, "I do," which he said, often and always correctly and in the right context, starting at 7 months. After that, though, he didn't have words to make other sentences, but he didn't let that stop him. He just spoke complete, LONG sentences and paragraphs, with perfect inflection patterns and facial expressions to match, made up entirely of nonsense words and gibberish.)
I guess not ALL children learn language the same way. I think, rather, we adults understand it the same way--until the kids plug in words, we don't get what they're saying.
We got home and Nathanael climbed up on a chair and woke the computer from its sleep and said, "I want to watch Thomas." Then he turned on Hulu. All by himself. Unfortunately, Hulu doesn't work very smoothly on the 10-year-old iMacs, so I came over and turned on Starfall.com for him (his favorite site). He said, "I want the ABCs song." So I loaded that and sat down in my rocking chair and started working on stuff.
He looked at it for a minute and then said, "I don't want the ABCs song."
Without hesitating, I glanced over and said, "Then don't watch it. Turn it off and choose something else. Click the X to go back or click the sparkles to play the song."
He said, "Okay," thought for a minute, watched the song and then went back to the main menu and chose a different activity, telling me what letter he had chosen before he clicked on it. All of that all by himself.
Only then did I glance back over and realize I had just told my less-than-2-year-old to use the internet with out help--and he did it! I guess he's verbally talented in both expressing himself AND in understanding.
This week, I also read a snippet from "What to expect from the Toddler Years." It explained clearly and unequivocally that ALL children learn language at different paces, but going through the exact same steps in the exact same order. And they listed the order, which I don't remember all of but that emphasized that kids learn words first and then sentences.
And it finally dawned on me why Benji had so much trouble learning to talk. He didn't learn words first. He learned sentences first. And it's taken him a couple of years to learn words to plug into the sentences he's been speaking since he was 7 months old. (His first English utterance was the complete sentence, "I do," which he said, often and always correctly and in the right context, starting at 7 months. After that, though, he didn't have words to make other sentences, but he didn't let that stop him. He just spoke complete, LONG sentences and paragraphs, with perfect inflection patterns and facial expressions to match, made up entirely of nonsense words and gibberish.)
I guess not ALL children learn language the same way. I think, rather, we adults understand it the same way--until the kids plug in words, we don't get what they're saying.
Did I just read that?
I picked up an old Wired magazine and a subscription card fell out. One one side are the standard "Business reply mail" and "no postage necessary if mailed in the United States" messages.
On the other is a place to write in your name, address, and email to order the magazine. At the bottom of the info section are two checkboxes: "Bill me later" and "Payment enclosed."
I turned that card over and over and still can't see where you can enclose the payment.....
;)
On the other is a place to write in your name, address, and email to order the magazine. At the bottom of the info section are two checkboxes: "Bill me later" and "Payment enclosed."
I turned that card over and over and still can't see where you can enclose the payment.....
;)
Friday, October 15, 2010
Fourth Grade is done
This is the last one I'm doing this year. Takes too much work, and I don't have anyone in any other grades right now!
Fourth Grade, Caleb style, can be accessed here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_15752xgxhg9
It's heavy on the History, drawing from a college-level US History course, because Caleb loves history. It's light on the math because we're using Saxon Math 54 this year because I trust Saxon and because Caleb can't stand to do a whole worksheet all of one kind of problem--drives him nuts with boredom.
I'm still polishing it up and fixing a few broken links, but most of it is accessible right away.
Fourth Grade, Caleb style, can be accessed here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddssdqrh_15752xgxhg9
It's heavy on the History, drawing from a college-level US History course, because Caleb loves history. It's light on the math because we're using Saxon Math 54 this year because I trust Saxon and because Caleb can't stand to do a whole worksheet all of one kind of problem--drives him nuts with boredom.
I'm still polishing it up and fixing a few broken links, but most of it is accessible right away.
Nathanael says.....
Nathanael is just 21 1/2 months old, and he's something of a chatterbox and loves to hang around while the other kids are doing their schooling. He's an incredible mimic, too.
I knew he was absorbing things, but figured, hey, he's just 21 months old, right?
So tonight at dinner I nearly fell off my chair when he interrupted Benji, who was trying to learn to identify the initial sounds in words, with this sentence, "'Whoops' starts the sound of doubles-you."
Why, yes, it does. And no, Benji hadn't been working on "Whoops" as a word the whole evening.
I think it might have been a fluke, though. Later Nathanael informed me, "Doubles-you says mmmmmm."
I knew he was absorbing things, but figured, hey, he's just 21 months old, right?
So tonight at dinner I nearly fell off my chair when he interrupted Benji, who was trying to learn to identify the initial sounds in words, with this sentence, "'Whoops' starts the sound of doubles-you."
Why, yes, it does. And no, Benji hadn't been working on "Whoops" as a word the whole evening.
I think it might have been a fluke, though. Later Nathanael informed me, "Doubles-you says mmmmmm."
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Kids....
I told the kids to "wrap it up so we can go to bed."
So they're all in the other room rapping at the top of their lungs.
Sigh.
So they're all in the other room rapping at the top of their lungs.
Sigh.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Raising boys
Despite the fact that I'm very much NOT a girly-girl, some things about raising boys still startle me.
Today, Benji was in the bath while I was putting on my makeup. He said, "Look, Mom! A Geyser!"
Yeah. Peeing in the tub in creative ways.
The next time I turned around, he was drinking the water so he could do it again!
I can't decide if that's better or worse than the day I found him peeing off the balcony to see how far it could go.
Or the couple of weeks he spend peeing down the stairs INSIDE the house.
Who knew bodily functions could be so entertaining to a 3 year old?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Nathanael says, "
Nathanael just learned how to jump with two feet off the ground. Just now he walked up to me and said, "I fell off the ground."
:)
:)
Monday, October 11, 2010
Did I just read that?
No humor here--just shock that the AP would make such a glaring error: "The paramedics then radioed that they're ambulance had been stolen with them inside."
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=711&sid=12780443
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=711&sid=12780443
Yet another explanation of why we homeschool
This pretty much sums up what I see coming out of public education.
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/57/childhoods-end/
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/57/childhoods-end/
Orson Scott Card Teaches you How to Write in 2 minutes flat
Orson Scott Card has been one of my most influential writing teachers. I went to every lecture he gave in Utah when I was in college, and they had an enormous influence on me even though I have read exactly ONE of his books and just a handful of his articles.
This: http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=1042 (about half-way down) pretty much sums up what I think about writing, English teachers, editing, etc.
It's a short must-read for writers.\
Seriously.
Skip to the middle if you don't want to read the whole thing (although it's all fast-paced and interesting), right to "The main advice is:...." and read from there.
Wow. The man is brilliant.
This: http://www.diabolicalplots.com/?p=1042 (about half-way down) pretty much sums up what I think about writing, English teachers, editing, etc.
It's a short must-read for writers.\
Seriously.
Skip to the middle if you don't want to read the whole thing (although it's all fast-paced and interesting), right to "The main advice is:...." and read from there.
Wow. The man is brilliant.
Why I believe in quitting
Everyone tells me that it's important to learn to fall and get back up again, to struggle and not give up, to climb the mountains and conquer the challenges and face the fears and never quit.
I believe that to a certain extent.
And not so much in a lot of ways.
It's one thing to never try again and sell yourself short when some little thing goes wrong or something is more challenging or difficult than you anticipated, or when you face persecution or trial. That's a mistake. And it's a mistake to say, "I'll never be pro at this so I'm not going to try."
But it's another to persist in something you really aren't good at and don't enjoy because you don't want to be a quitter or don't want to be embarrassed or can't see an easy way out. That's a waste of time.
And I firmly believe there is a time and season for things to happen, and pushing them out of season is as foolhardy as trying to make the apples ripen in the summer. It's just not time. So it would be wise to quit.
Watching my kids this week, that has really been driven home for me. Daniel has been a WRECK since he started kindergarten. He cries or whines all the time, won't let me out of his sight--and preferably he wants to be touching me all day, which drives me nuts (I'm not a touchy person). He fights with the other kids, picks on them, and has suddenly developed a penchant for exercise unrighteous dominion over the other kids. And bullying. And competing. The joy of exploration and childhood is gone. The sense of peace and security he needs is lost. And it's been driving me crazy.
Obviously, the conclusion I came to was that Kindergarten is not good for Daniel, but he kept insisting he wanted to stick with it, like he was trying to prove something. But I'm not having any fun, and neither is he. So what were we holding on to?
Time to quit. There is no glory in pushing through it, in holding on, in forcing adjustments, in not giving up at the expense of all else. Would we really be glad we did that? Would it really be worth it?
No. Sometimes the very best option is to just quit. There is joy and rightness in being a quitter when it saves your soul, gives you peace, and frees you to pursue things that are right and good. If you waste all your time playing basketball mediocrely and never develop your real talents, what have you gained? NOTHING.
So today I sat Dan down and said, "You have to make a choice. Either you learn how to go to school by yourself in the next few weeks, or you have to stop going altogether. Maybe you are just too young this year and can try again next year."
He's insisted for almost 2 months now that he wasn't going to quit, but telling him he was too young put a new light into his eyes. "I'm too young," he said almost immediately.
Anda, listening in, said, "He's not too young. He's five."
"He's the youngest kindergartner this year," I explained. "Many of them are just turning six, and he just barely turned five. He can do kindergarten next year and be the oldest in the class by a few weeks instead of the youngest by 11 1/2 months."
"I'm the smartest kid in my class," Dan said. "But I'm too young." (He might not be THE smartest--I hesitate ever to claim that about anyone because in my entire experience of everything there has always been someone smarter, but he is one of the first in his current class to finish every assignment and he is bored out of his mind by the academics.).
The change in him was visible. Suddenly that old, unstressed smile appeared. He started bouncing around the house. He actually went to bed and right to sleep without harassing me for three hours like he has every night for a month.
I guess he just needed an "out"--some excuse to quit that made it okay for him, that wasn't a blow to his self image or his understanding of what was going on. And being too young was sufficient excuse for him.
And what a relief for me.
So I believe in quitting.
Not every time.
But some times it's the very best decision you could ever make.
I believe that to a certain extent.
And not so much in a lot of ways.
It's one thing to never try again and sell yourself short when some little thing goes wrong or something is more challenging or difficult than you anticipated, or when you face persecution or trial. That's a mistake. And it's a mistake to say, "I'll never be pro at this so I'm not going to try."
But it's another to persist in something you really aren't good at and don't enjoy because you don't want to be a quitter or don't want to be embarrassed or can't see an easy way out. That's a waste of time.
And I firmly believe there is a time and season for things to happen, and pushing them out of season is as foolhardy as trying to make the apples ripen in the summer. It's just not time. So it would be wise to quit.
Watching my kids this week, that has really been driven home for me. Daniel has been a WRECK since he started kindergarten. He cries or whines all the time, won't let me out of his sight--and preferably he wants to be touching me all day, which drives me nuts (I'm not a touchy person). He fights with the other kids, picks on them, and has suddenly developed a penchant for exercise unrighteous dominion over the other kids. And bullying. And competing. The joy of exploration and childhood is gone. The sense of peace and security he needs is lost. And it's been driving me crazy.
Obviously, the conclusion I came to was that Kindergarten is not good for Daniel, but he kept insisting he wanted to stick with it, like he was trying to prove something. But I'm not having any fun, and neither is he. So what were we holding on to?
Time to quit. There is no glory in pushing through it, in holding on, in forcing adjustments, in not giving up at the expense of all else. Would we really be glad we did that? Would it really be worth it?
No. Sometimes the very best option is to just quit. There is joy and rightness in being a quitter when it saves your soul, gives you peace, and frees you to pursue things that are right and good. If you waste all your time playing basketball mediocrely and never develop your real talents, what have you gained? NOTHING.
So today I sat Dan down and said, "You have to make a choice. Either you learn how to go to school by yourself in the next few weeks, or you have to stop going altogether. Maybe you are just too young this year and can try again next year."
He's insisted for almost 2 months now that he wasn't going to quit, but telling him he was too young put a new light into his eyes. "I'm too young," he said almost immediately.
Anda, listening in, said, "He's not too young. He's five."
"He's the youngest kindergartner this year," I explained. "Many of them are just turning six, and he just barely turned five. He can do kindergarten next year and be the oldest in the class by a few weeks instead of the youngest by 11 1/2 months."
"I'm the smartest kid in my class," Dan said. "But I'm too young." (He might not be THE smartest--I hesitate ever to claim that about anyone because in my entire experience of everything there has always been someone smarter, but he is one of the first in his current class to finish every assignment and he is bored out of his mind by the academics.).
The change in him was visible. Suddenly that old, unstressed smile appeared. He started bouncing around the house. He actually went to bed and right to sleep without harassing me for three hours like he has every night for a month.
I guess he just needed an "out"--some excuse to quit that made it okay for him, that wasn't a blow to his self image or his understanding of what was going on. And being too young was sufficient excuse for him.
And what a relief for me.
So I believe in quitting.
Not every time.
But some times it's the very best decision you could ever make.
Update on the curriculum adventure.
Today I went through over 200 American History for Kids pages. TWO HUNDRED. And that was just today. I went through a bunch yesterday and the day before, too. I have about 30 left open on my computer to check. Most of them were boring, text-intensive, poorly written. One was sensationalized beyond being educational. Some were legitimately interesting. Some were good but not fourth-grade appropriate (I don't think I want Caleb learning about the sexual liberation of teenagers between 1950 and 1990). Many, many, many of them were legitimately educational but heavily slanted toward social causes. There are far far more sites on black and/or female historical figures than white males, even though white males actually were dominant in the primary events in US history for 200 years. So in 200 sites on US history, I found dozens and dozens on slavery and how mistreated African-Americans and Native Americans and immigrants were (and these were all the slickest, most media-savvy, nicest looking and most interesting sites), and only one or two that had any sort of information on Benjamin Franklin. There were more sites on Franklin and Edison in the science sites than the history sites. That's fine, except Franklin really did play a rather significant role in getting France on our side in the Revolution, and we wouldn't have won without him. Not to mention everything else he did in his lifetime. I am totally good with making it clear that people oppressed and abused each other historically and we need to not repeat those mistakes. But I don't think I want Caleb learning a history of victimization and how evil white men are. He's going to grow up to be a white man, after all. I want him to learn about how great men can be--all men--minus the color-coding. The more we focus on racial issues, the more they become issues. (Interestingly, US courses mostly don't cover white Americans who have been victimized, like the Acadians or Mormons). I prefer the Sesame Street approach--everyone interacts as humans, and we get to forget that we are all varying shades of brown. But I was surprised how many interactives are tainted by victim culture or feminism.
So history today and tomorrow.
Last week I went through at least 500 Physical Science links.
I'm getting a little bored. Also pretty good at telling right away if a website has viable content presented in an engaging way.
Unfortunately, Caleb's 4th grade curriculum has nearly 3000 activities in it, and I was kind of aiming for 2100 or less--12 per day. So now I have to go through and sort everything out and choose the best links for each topic (because really, he doesn't need to explore Colonial Clothing three times) and eliminate any duplicates and get them in order. Good thing I enjoy that kind of work!
The goal for each subject is to have a core curriculum that is legitimately educational and created by someone else (like the Hippocampus AP History curriculum Caleb has for his history). Preferably, this is something that includes lessons, texts, worksheets, tests, and activities. Then I fill in the gaps with cool, interesting enrichments stuff from all over the web. The curriculum should be slightly challenging intellectually (but only slightly), while the enrichment stuff MUST be easy, fun, engaging for that age. In subjects I'm extremely confident in (mostly the arts--so writing, literature, music, art, etc.), I create the core concept myself and fill in the gaps. For the more "academic" subjects (history, science, math), I find a complete curriculum and use it and fill in the gaps.
I have finished two years of preschool, all of kindergarten, all of second grade, and nearly all of 4th grade this way, and it's been fun. When I'm done with Caleb's curriculum (hopefully by tomorrow night), I will quit for the year and move on to sorting all the clothes in the house because that's the next biggest disaster that must be dealt with. Not as fun as making online "Freeschooling" for the kids, but necessary at this point.
So history today and tomorrow.
Last week I went through at least 500 Physical Science links.
I'm getting a little bored. Also pretty good at telling right away if a website has viable content presented in an engaging way.
Unfortunately, Caleb's 4th grade curriculum has nearly 3000 activities in it, and I was kind of aiming for 2100 or less--12 per day. So now I have to go through and sort everything out and choose the best links for each topic (because really, he doesn't need to explore Colonial Clothing three times) and eliminate any duplicates and get them in order. Good thing I enjoy that kind of work!
The goal for each subject is to have a core curriculum that is legitimately educational and created by someone else (like the Hippocampus AP History curriculum Caleb has for his history). Preferably, this is something that includes lessons, texts, worksheets, tests, and activities. Then I fill in the gaps with cool, interesting enrichments stuff from all over the web. The curriculum should be slightly challenging intellectually (but only slightly), while the enrichment stuff MUST be easy, fun, engaging for that age. In subjects I'm extremely confident in (mostly the arts--so writing, literature, music, art, etc.), I create the core concept myself and fill in the gaps. For the more "academic" subjects (history, science, math), I find a complete curriculum and use it and fill in the gaps.
I have finished two years of preschool, all of kindergarten, all of second grade, and nearly all of 4th grade this way, and it's been fun. When I'm done with Caleb's curriculum (hopefully by tomorrow night), I will quit for the year and move on to sorting all the clothes in the house because that's the next biggest disaster that must be dealt with. Not as fun as making online "Freeschooling" for the kids, but necessary at this point.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
More writing education woes
So I wrote the last post on writing after I did Anda's English/writing curriculum (for English this year, she's learning about parody/fractured fairytales, Shel Silverstein, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, plus a little on grammar, punctuation, homophones, synonyms/antonyms, storytelling, touch-typing. cursive writing, and spelling).
Today I did Caleb's English curriculum (word roots and origins, The Hobbit, Around the World in 80 Days, A Christmas Carol, Stories from Shakespeare, writing effective paragraphs, figurative writing and other fun language stuff like puns and palindromes, descriptive writing and a smattering of grammar, punctuation, spelling, handwriting, touch typing, and editing skills).
As a writer and as a teacher, I find the writing curricula out there absolutely agonizing to dig through. I can't find good materials to save my life! I think I mostly resorted to college writing lab materials for some of the stuff I needed because the materials written for elementary school were so unbelievably awful I couldn't use them.
Biggest flaw I found: examples that clearly illustrated only that the person who wrote the material didn't understand the concept themselves. (Take this worksheet as an example: http://www.abcteach.com/free/p/poetryprompts_similes.pdf. Their example simile is "The tree was as tall as a house." It IS a sentence comparing two things using like or as. It is NOT a simile because it is an actual measurement. The tree really was probably as tall as a house. That's a legit quantitative comparison, not an example of figurative language. So now how are the kids supposed to figure it out?). The teaching materials out there are rife with non-examples of personification (just having an object do something uncharacteristic is NOT personification), simile, metaphor, puns that really aren't (these were the worst! Like this non-pun from Buzzle's pun page: "A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor." -- http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pun-examples.html-- It's a nice play on words. Not a pun, though. Not even by their definition.)
Second biggest flaw (and probably more damaging): Using examples that are so poorly written that they are almost unreadable. How are we supposed to be enticing children to write and read if the stuff we feed them is unpalatable? The very worst of these examples were on the "show, don't tell" lessons. They would give an example of "telling" and then an example of "showing" that was more descriptive and much much worse writing than the "telling" example, leaving me saying, "But why would I want to write like that?!" (like here: http://www.writing-world.com/basics/dawn02.shtml "Squeezed into the corner of the room at the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. On top of the drawers was a single electric hotplate. Opposite this was a sink piled high with dirty pots with a toothbrush just visible, peeking out through the handle of a mug. Facing the bed was a small table with a fold up-chair. On top of the table was an overflowing ashtray and yesterday's newspaper. Behind the door stood a mouldy wicker waste bin full of ash and cigarette ends." Might be descriptive, but it's choppy, unimaginative writing that has no beauty, no life, and no character in the words or the images. Plus the images are strung together in a way that doesn't really paint a picture for the reader....)
One of the ways teachers manage to accomplish these two awful mistakes is by following the ongoing trend of using student writing as examples. I can see what they're thinking, sort of, but student writing is rarely good writing. Even good student writing is not usually good writing in the broader sense. Writing teachers are taught that this is good pedagogy, but it's not if you want your students to a) like writing and b) get good at it. They need examples of good writing from the best writers.
Another flaw is the teachers, being poor writers themselves, are too prescriptive in their writing education. That's funny coming from my mouth, because I am a HUGE fan of teaching people the skills they need to write, rather than making them read a lot of mediocre writing and expecting them to learn by osmosis, which is how the majority of writing is taught K-12. The trouble is, when elementary teachers aren't expecting people to learn writing by osmosis from bad examples written by other children, they are out there laying down laws that are so restrictive they take all the life out of writing. Take any lesson on "The five-sentence paragraph" and you'll see what I mean. No space for expression. It's awful. There is absolutely a place to for teaching structure in writing. Good writing DOES have a structure and even bad writers can learn to adequately express themselves given the right guidelines, but teaching all students at such a young age that there is only one way to do it right is a mistake! The focus should be on, in this order: 1) having something to say, 2) expressing it convincingly, and 3) making it clear to the reader. The "5-sentence paragraph" lessons aren't completely wrong. They're just too restrictive in saying there is ONLY ONE WAY to do it right.
Yet another thing that absolutely grates on me is poetry education. Anyone who has children write acrostics as "poetry" education has no idea what poetry is. I have spent years successfully teaching poetry to kids who've been taught to HATE poetry by the elementary curricula. How do you do it? Number one biggest thing is to have them read a BUNCH of REALLY GOOD poetry in different styles, expressing different things, from different poets. You cannot teach children about poetry by having them write pseudo-poetry that always comes out bad. The kids know it sounds bad. They know it doesn't make sense and doesn't express any of their own thoughts or feelings. How is that teaching them anything except that poetry is dull and they can't write it anyway? Poetry education should not include assignments to write poetry except for extra credit. Good poetry should inspire those who can write poetry to write it, and there's no use forcing people who don't have the interest or gift to try, especially since writing poetry is not a vital life skill (and I say that as a person who loves to both read and write poetry).
So, to teach poetry, children should read and have read to them (even up to college age) good poetry. They should have a chance to examine the techniques poets use (which, when skillfully used, are amazing!). They should be exposed to the inner workings of poetry, like rhyme, meter, figurative language, repetition, etc., in great poetry. They should be told that they are expected to not like every poem and that THAT is okay.
That said, it hasn't been a total waste of time searching for resources, and I didn't end up writing all my own materials for the kids.
There are a few really really good resources out there for teaching English. For example, Scholastic has writing lessons by some of the best writers out there. You can access them free here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/?lnkid=TNav:SA:Write%20and%20Publish&ESP=SA/ib//acq/write_publish_tnav_SA///nav/txtl////
With even more great stuff here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/clf/tguidesitemap.htm?lnkid=TNav:SA:Computer%20Lab%20Favorites&ESP=SA/ib//acq/comp_lab_fav_tnav_SA///nav/txtl////
There are a lot of GREAT activities here: http://learner.org/interactives/
Some good stuff here: http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/eng/vtc-home.htm (but some of it is only in Welsh!).
Also TONS of great stuff here: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/ and at its sister site: http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/
I've also found fantastic resources coming out of museums, libraries, middle schools, and individual author websites. So there is hope out there.
But I do feel sorry for all the millions of kids who are expected to somehow learn to write using the trash the teachers are giving them!
Today I did Caleb's English curriculum (word roots and origins, The Hobbit, Around the World in 80 Days, A Christmas Carol, Stories from Shakespeare, writing effective paragraphs, figurative writing and other fun language stuff like puns and palindromes, descriptive writing and a smattering of grammar, punctuation, spelling, handwriting, touch typing, and editing skills).
As a writer and as a teacher, I find the writing curricula out there absolutely agonizing to dig through. I can't find good materials to save my life! I think I mostly resorted to college writing lab materials for some of the stuff I needed because the materials written for elementary school were so unbelievably awful I couldn't use them.
Biggest flaw I found: examples that clearly illustrated only that the person who wrote the material didn't understand the concept themselves. (Take this worksheet as an example: http://www.abcteach.com/free/p/poetryprompts_similes.pdf. Their example simile is "The tree was as tall as a house." It IS a sentence comparing two things using like or as. It is NOT a simile because it is an actual measurement. The tree really was probably as tall as a house. That's a legit quantitative comparison, not an example of figurative language. So now how are the kids supposed to figure it out?). The teaching materials out there are rife with non-examples of personification (just having an object do something uncharacteristic is NOT personification), simile, metaphor, puns that really aren't (these were the worst! Like this non-pun from Buzzle's pun page: "A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor." -- http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pun-examples.html-- It's a nice play on words. Not a pun, though. Not even by their definition.)
Second biggest flaw (and probably more damaging): Using examples that are so poorly written that they are almost unreadable. How are we supposed to be enticing children to write and read if the stuff we feed them is unpalatable? The very worst of these examples were on the "show, don't tell" lessons. They would give an example of "telling" and then an example of "showing" that was more descriptive and much much worse writing than the "telling" example, leaving me saying, "But why would I want to write like that?!" (like here: http://www.writing-world.com/basics/dawn02.shtml "Squeezed into the corner of the room at the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. On top of the drawers was a single electric hotplate. Opposite this was a sink piled high with dirty pots with a toothbrush just visible, peeking out through the handle of a mug. Facing the bed was a small table with a fold up-chair. On top of the table was an overflowing ashtray and yesterday's newspaper. Behind the door stood a mouldy wicker waste bin full of ash and cigarette ends." Might be descriptive, but it's choppy, unimaginative writing that has no beauty, no life, and no character in the words or the images. Plus the images are strung together in a way that doesn't really paint a picture for the reader....)
One of the ways teachers manage to accomplish these two awful mistakes is by following the ongoing trend of using student writing as examples. I can see what they're thinking, sort of, but student writing is rarely good writing. Even good student writing is not usually good writing in the broader sense. Writing teachers are taught that this is good pedagogy, but it's not if you want your students to a) like writing and b) get good at it. They need examples of good writing from the best writers.
Another flaw is the teachers, being poor writers themselves, are too prescriptive in their writing education. That's funny coming from my mouth, because I am a HUGE fan of teaching people the skills they need to write, rather than making them read a lot of mediocre writing and expecting them to learn by osmosis, which is how the majority of writing is taught K-12. The trouble is, when elementary teachers aren't expecting people to learn writing by osmosis from bad examples written by other children, they are out there laying down laws that are so restrictive they take all the life out of writing. Take any lesson on "The five-sentence paragraph" and you'll see what I mean. No space for expression. It's awful. There is absolutely a place to for teaching structure in writing. Good writing DOES have a structure and even bad writers can learn to adequately express themselves given the right guidelines, but teaching all students at such a young age that there is only one way to do it right is a mistake! The focus should be on, in this order: 1) having something to say, 2) expressing it convincingly, and 3) making it clear to the reader. The "5-sentence paragraph" lessons aren't completely wrong. They're just too restrictive in saying there is ONLY ONE WAY to do it right.
Yet another thing that absolutely grates on me is poetry education. Anyone who has children write acrostics as "poetry" education has no idea what poetry is. I have spent years successfully teaching poetry to kids who've been taught to HATE poetry by the elementary curricula. How do you do it? Number one biggest thing is to have them read a BUNCH of REALLY GOOD poetry in different styles, expressing different things, from different poets. You cannot teach children about poetry by having them write pseudo-poetry that always comes out bad. The kids know it sounds bad. They know it doesn't make sense and doesn't express any of their own thoughts or feelings. How is that teaching them anything except that poetry is dull and they can't write it anyway? Poetry education should not include assignments to write poetry except for extra credit. Good poetry should inspire those who can write poetry to write it, and there's no use forcing people who don't have the interest or gift to try, especially since writing poetry is not a vital life skill (and I say that as a person who loves to both read and write poetry).
So, to teach poetry, children should read and have read to them (even up to college age) good poetry. They should have a chance to examine the techniques poets use (which, when skillfully used, are amazing!). They should be exposed to the inner workings of poetry, like rhyme, meter, figurative language, repetition, etc., in great poetry. They should be told that they are expected to not like every poem and that THAT is okay.
That said, it hasn't been a total waste of time searching for resources, and I didn't end up writing all my own materials for the kids.
There are a few really really good resources out there for teaching English. For example, Scholastic has writing lessons by some of the best writers out there. You can access them free here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/?lnkid=TNav:SA:Write%20and%20Publish&ESP=SA/ib//acq/write_publish_tnav_SA///nav/txtl////
With even more great stuff here: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/clf/tguidesitemap.htm?lnkid=TNav:SA:Computer%20Lab%20Favorites&ESP=SA/ib//acq/comp_lab_fav_tnav_SA///nav/txtl////
There are a lot of GREAT activities here: http://learner.org/interactives/
Some good stuff here: http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/eng/vtc-home.htm (but some of it is only in Welsh!).
Also TONS of great stuff here: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/ and at its sister site: http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/
I've also found fantastic resources coming out of museums, libraries, middle schools, and individual author websites. So there is hope out there.
But I do feel sorry for all the millions of kids who are expected to somehow learn to write using the trash the teachers are giving them!
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Elementary School Writing lessons....grrrrr
I've been painstakingly collecting lessons for each of my children on each topic they're studying this year (reading, writing, spelling, art, music, history/social studies, science, Spanish, and a few miscellaneous things), and I keep coming across writing lessons that teach downright WRONG writing ideas---ideas editors and agents in the professional sphere are constantly harping on writers to get right. (Right being exactly what the elementary schools worldwide are teaching is WRONG. So confusing!).
Some things I keep finding that are well-established in all the reading and writing English curricula I've found around the world:
--"You need to cut back on the use of the word 'said.'" They have whole lessons on synonyms for "said" because they say you are not supposed to use it. Guess what? Agents constantly are begging authors to just go with "said." Why? Two reasons: a) it's relatively invisible, putting the focus on WHAT was said instead of the words you're using to express yourself. It's straightforward and tells you who said what without drawing attention out of the text. And b) most of the time, people really do just say it. They don't exclaim, proclaim, declaim, shout, sigh, declare, state, announce, or any of those other supposed "synonyms" teachers tell you to use. Most people just talk. For the sake of accuracy and clarity of writing, it's best to use the right word, which is usually "said." And, since it is so invisible, most people skip over it. They don't sit there and think, "Gee, the author used that word an awful lot of times in a row...." If your characters really are shouting, then by all means use that word. But don't just use it for variety--it both muddies the writing and reveals you lack both imagination and a firm grasp of English. Good writers use words precisely, and all those "synonyms" for 'said' really have their own meaning and should be used when they are called for, not for variety. Words for "said" are like words for colors: azure, turquoise, and aquamarine are all words for blue, but nobody who has SEEN those colors is going to think they are synonyms.
"Synonyms" itself is another of those things that gets taught and is wrong. There are no true synonyms by the English teachers' definition: two words that mean the same thing. People who really "get" language know that every word has a different, precise meaning that is not identical to any other. Even if the denotation is the same, the connotations are very different. Two words, while very similar in meaning, are NOT interchangeable in a carefully written sentence. It would behoove teachers to teach writers to choose the most descriptive, accurate word that best expresses the meaning, not just a "synonym for variety." Likewise, it would benefit students to choose the simplest way to say something---often the more complex "synonym" actually means something slightly different than the writer thinks it does, and it makes the writer look stupid. Likewise, what is the benefit of confusing the reader if there is a simpler way to express what you mean?
Another thing I keep running across is "There are three ways to begin a story." What? Who made that up? Not a writer, editor, or agent. Especially since one of the ways is dialogue. While it can be appropriate to begin a tale with dialogue, agents all over BEG young writers not to use dialogue to begin a story. It's confusing, weak, and generally speaking boring. It does happen effectively sometimes, but it shouldn't be done as a matter of course.
"Begin at the beginning." This might be true, but teachers invariably fail to properly teach what the beginning IS. They're so busy teaching exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution...when in real books, you'll find they don't really start with exposition. They start with action. The thing is, English teachers tend to like "literary fiction," which most of the rest of us don't like, and THOSE books tend to be heavy on the exposition and light on the action. In fact, they often are all exposition with very little action, a barely justifiable "climax" and an unsettling resolution. English teachers like to read those. Most of the rest of the country doesn't. And most books aren't actually written that way. (English teachers live in their own little wacky world that they define the parameters for and then try to force everything to fit or declare it trashy.)
See, the beginning of a story is where the STORY starts, not the stuff that happened before the story started. It's where the plot begins, and the plot isn't really E, R, C, F, R--it's really a problem that is solved. Problem--solution. That's a plot. Plot often includes character growth, a quest, and mystery. It involves a conflict and its resolution. And where that conflict starts, where that quest or mystery becomes an issue to the character--that's the beginning of the story. NOT an exposition telling you how the character got to the point where the story might matter to them, not an exposition telling you who the character is or where they came from or why they're working in the forge or castle or library. You only need enough before the "beginning" that the reader cares about the protagonist. And that is often less than a page.
Some things I keep finding that are well-established in all the reading and writing English curricula I've found around the world:
--"You need to cut back on the use of the word 'said.'" They have whole lessons on synonyms for "said" because they say you are not supposed to use it. Guess what? Agents constantly are begging authors to just go with "said." Why? Two reasons: a) it's relatively invisible, putting the focus on WHAT was said instead of the words you're using to express yourself. It's straightforward and tells you who said what without drawing attention out of the text. And b) most of the time, people really do just say it. They don't exclaim, proclaim, declaim, shout, sigh, declare, state, announce, or any of those other supposed "synonyms" teachers tell you to use. Most people just talk. For the sake of accuracy and clarity of writing, it's best to use the right word, which is usually "said." And, since it is so invisible, most people skip over it. They don't sit there and think, "Gee, the author used that word an awful lot of times in a row...." If your characters really are shouting, then by all means use that word. But don't just use it for variety--it both muddies the writing and reveals you lack both imagination and a firm grasp of English. Good writers use words precisely, and all those "synonyms" for 'said' really have their own meaning and should be used when they are called for, not for variety. Words for "said" are like words for colors: azure, turquoise, and aquamarine are all words for blue, but nobody who has SEEN those colors is going to think they are synonyms.
"Synonyms" itself is another of those things that gets taught and is wrong. There are no true synonyms by the English teachers' definition: two words that mean the same thing. People who really "get" language know that every word has a different, precise meaning that is not identical to any other. Even if the denotation is the same, the connotations are very different. Two words, while very similar in meaning, are NOT interchangeable in a carefully written sentence. It would behoove teachers to teach writers to choose the most descriptive, accurate word that best expresses the meaning, not just a "synonym for variety." Likewise, it would benefit students to choose the simplest way to say something---often the more complex "synonym" actually means something slightly different than the writer thinks it does, and it makes the writer look stupid. Likewise, what is the benefit of confusing the reader if there is a simpler way to express what you mean?
Another thing I keep running across is "There are three ways to begin a story." What? Who made that up? Not a writer, editor, or agent. Especially since one of the ways is dialogue. While it can be appropriate to begin a tale with dialogue, agents all over BEG young writers not to use dialogue to begin a story. It's confusing, weak, and generally speaking boring. It does happen effectively sometimes, but it shouldn't be done as a matter of course.
"Begin at the beginning." This might be true, but teachers invariably fail to properly teach what the beginning IS. They're so busy teaching exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution...when in real books, you'll find they don't really start with exposition. They start with action. The thing is, English teachers tend to like "literary fiction," which most of the rest of us don't like, and THOSE books tend to be heavy on the exposition and light on the action. In fact, they often are all exposition with very little action, a barely justifiable "climax" and an unsettling resolution. English teachers like to read those. Most of the rest of the country doesn't. And most books aren't actually written that way. (English teachers live in their own little wacky world that they define the parameters for and then try to force everything to fit or declare it trashy.)
See, the beginning of a story is where the STORY starts, not the stuff that happened before the story started. It's where the plot begins, and the plot isn't really E, R, C, F, R--it's really a problem that is solved. Problem--solution. That's a plot. Plot often includes character growth, a quest, and mystery. It involves a conflict and its resolution. And where that conflict starts, where that quest or mystery becomes an issue to the character--that's the beginning of the story. NOT an exposition telling you how the character got to the point where the story might matter to them, not an exposition telling you who the character is or where they came from or why they're working in the forge or castle or library. You only need enough before the "beginning" that the reader cares about the protagonist. And that is often less than a page.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Just like ME!
Every teacher knows that, to a great extent, the whole setup is a bluff. Any thinking teacher has realized that the kids really could just stand up and walk out and what could you REALLY do about it, anyway? It's only indoctrination and expectation that keeps schools running at all.
So guess whose kid called the teacher's bluff today?
Yeah. Mine.
Part of me is mortified. Part of me, secretly, is pleased.
I had sent the teacher a note saying Caleb could sit out of PE today and watch if he wanted. So when he was struggling and wanted to sit out and watch, she didn't let him (erg?). She said he needed to learn "life lessons." (I, as parent, say that THAT is not her job. Her job is to teach physical education. Not life lessons. That's my job. I'm the mom.)
The rest of this I'm getting from the teacher, not from Caleb, who just reported, "I hate it."
Teacher said she told him he needed to participate. He said, "Why?"
She said, "You need to learn life lessons about getting up and moving on when things don't go well, and about not giving up" (I think parents should deal with quitting issues, not PE teachers).
Caleb said, "I'm not going to learn it here because I hate this class." (He had a good point, you know? He was aware that he was closed to learning anything at that point, so why try to force him? Waste of everyone's time.)
She said, "I can't give you points if you don't participate...."
Caleb replied, "Why would I care about that?" (GO CALEB! I so agree. Plus he totally called her bluff. Now what's she supposed to say?) (I know, I know. I should be ashamed of him instead of proud of him. But he made it clear that he doesn't buy into a stupid, broken system. Points? Really? That's supposed to be a motivation? Is there anything more artificial? Plus he was inviting her--okay challenging her--to give him a good reason why staying in a game of dead chicken tag was important, and she really couldn't. So why would he go with that? I could probably have found a reason he could accept, but when she didn't, he wasn't interested in negotiating anymore.)
She resorted to guarding the door so he wouldn't walk out again (after the site supervisor caught him and took him back to class.).
Anyway, I just listened to her. I'm not big on confrontation. But I wanted to say, "Well, if you had done what my note said, you would have been spared all of that, now, wouldn't you? Guarding the door, indeed....." If she had listened to me, they both would have had a better day. And more dignity. And more likelihood that Caleb would try again.
Unfortunately, fighting with the teacher kind of makes it hard to go back to class. And we missed the deadline for switching him to another class. What do I do now?
All the while, I'm listening to all of this and trying to be a good, grown-up mommy about it, and in the back of my mind, I can see the little blond girl storm off the running field and shout at her teacher, "I will not do this any more. You can't reasonably ask me to do something that you couldn't do yourself!"
Yeah, I was in fourth grade then, too.
So guess whose kid called the teacher's bluff today?
Yeah. Mine.
Part of me is mortified. Part of me, secretly, is pleased.
I had sent the teacher a note saying Caleb could sit out of PE today and watch if he wanted. So when he was struggling and wanted to sit out and watch, she didn't let him (erg?). She said he needed to learn "life lessons." (I, as parent, say that THAT is not her job. Her job is to teach physical education. Not life lessons. That's my job. I'm the mom.)
The rest of this I'm getting from the teacher, not from Caleb, who just reported, "I hate it."
Teacher said she told him he needed to participate. He said, "Why?"
She said, "You need to learn life lessons about getting up and moving on when things don't go well, and about not giving up" (I think parents should deal with quitting issues, not PE teachers).
Caleb said, "I'm not going to learn it here because I hate this class." (He had a good point, you know? He was aware that he was closed to learning anything at that point, so why try to force him? Waste of everyone's time.)
She said, "I can't give you points if you don't participate...."
Caleb replied, "Why would I care about that?" (GO CALEB! I so agree. Plus he totally called her bluff. Now what's she supposed to say?) (I know, I know. I should be ashamed of him instead of proud of him. But he made it clear that he doesn't buy into a stupid, broken system. Points? Really? That's supposed to be a motivation? Is there anything more artificial? Plus he was inviting her--okay challenging her--to give him a good reason why staying in a game of dead chicken tag was important, and she really couldn't. So why would he go with that? I could probably have found a reason he could accept, but when she didn't, he wasn't interested in negotiating anymore.)
She resorted to guarding the door so he wouldn't walk out again (after the site supervisor caught him and took him back to class.).
Anyway, I just listened to her. I'm not big on confrontation. But I wanted to say, "Well, if you had done what my note said, you would have been spared all of that, now, wouldn't you? Guarding the door, indeed....." If she had listened to me, they both would have had a better day. And more dignity. And more likelihood that Caleb would try again.
Unfortunately, fighting with the teacher kind of makes it hard to go back to class. And we missed the deadline for switching him to another class. What do I do now?
All the while, I'm listening to all of this and trying to be a good, grown-up mommy about it, and in the back of my mind, I can see the little blond girl storm off the running field and shout at her teacher, "I will not do this any more. You can't reasonably ask me to do something that you couldn't do yourself!"
Yeah, I was in fourth grade then, too.
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